The United States announced Monday a new salvo of sanctions aimed at disrupting the supply chains of the Russian military apparatus and financial networks linked to the Kremlin including entities in France and Switzerland. The sanctions include the Russian electronics company Milandr and front companies in Armenia, Taiwan and Switzerland linked to the Russian company, according to press releases from the US Treasury Department and the State Department.
“In response to Moscow’s unprovoked war on Ukraine, the United States will continue to disrupt Russian military supply chains and impose severe costs on those who come to the aid of President Vladimir Putin, as well than all those who support Russian brutality vis-à-vis its neighbor,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken quoted in the press release.
Information to remember:
- US announces new sanctions against Russia
- Volodymyr Zelensky claimed to have documented evidence of “atrocities” committed in Kherson by the Russians.
- The Ukrainian president visited the city of Kherson, taken back from the Russians who still claim to own the city.
- Sergei Lavrov has arrived in Bali where he will represent Russia at the G20, there he sweeps away rumors of hospitalization.
Russians committed ‘atrocities’ in Kherson, says Zelensky
He added that 400 Russian “war crimes” had been documented, without specifying whether they concerned only the Kherson region. Many residents of the city told AFP on the spot that the Russian forces, which finished evacuating the city on Friday after eight months of presence, have sown desolation there. “They looted all the apartments, they destroyed the doors, they lived in the apartments. They took all the electronic equipment. They are thieves”, enrages Svetlana Vilna, 47, who says she “felt like in jail for nine months.
Oleg Nazarenko, 25, says that “the young people were stopped and searched. They terrified us. They were worse than the fascists. It was like that”. A 30-year-old philosophy student, who says his name is Andrïi, assures us that “now we have no electricity in the city, no water, no central heating, no mobile connection, no internet connection but we don’t ‘have no Russians, and I’m extremely happy about that.
Great relief to see the occupier leave
President Zelensky had accused the Russians on Saturday evening of having destroyed essential infrastructure before fleeing. “We are in the process of restoring communications, internet, television and we are doing everything possible to restore the supply of electricity and water as quickly as possible,” he said on Sunday.
In this energy and logistical chaos, jubilation had prevailed since Friday. Ukrainian flags, hugs with soldiers from kyiv, horns and whistles still brightened up the city on Sunday, AFP noted. You could also see destroyed military vehicles, mutilated buildings, and smell the smell of burning wood in this strategic Black Sea port, where war was still raging a few days ago. On Sunday, the population expressed above all a great relief to see the occupier gone.
As queues stretch outside food and emergency aid distribution posts, many adults and children move through the streets wrapped in blue and yellow flags. Some are gathered in the main square of the city, in order to communicate with their loved ones via the Starlink satellite internet service, owned by Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla and Twitter.
“I need to reconnect with my family,” says Klavdia Mych, a 69-year-old retired teacher. “We haven’t had water for a week, she adds. And they say everything is mined: it’s scary”. On Facebook, Oleksandr Todorchuk, founder of UAnimals, an animal rights movement, says the occupants left, taking “most of the animals from the zoo to Crimea with them. [territoire ukrainien annexé par Moscou en 2014]from llamas to wolves to squirrels.
After the successive military setbacks of the Russian army since the summer, the Russian withdrawal from Kherson is an even greater humiliation for the Kremlin since the region of this great city is one of the four annexed by Russia in violation of international law following its invasion ofUkraine, February 24.
This is the third major Russian withdrawal since the beginning of the war, Russia having given up in the spring to take kyiv in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance, before being driven out of almost the entire Kharkiv region. (northeast) in September.
the security service says it arrested a Russian soldier in Kherson “disguised as a civilian”
The Ukrainian security service said on Monday that it had arrested a Russian soldier “disguised as a civilian” in Kherson (south), while fears that soldiers from Moscow are still present incognito in the city liberated on Friday are strong.
“Security service agents arrested a Russian soldier in liberated Kherson. The man was disguised as a civilian and tried to impersonate a + local +”, said this structure (SBU) in a press release, a few hours later. the surprise visit of President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the SBU, “he admitted that he was a professional soldier” of the Russian forces, in charge of “gathering intelligence (…) and carrying out (sabotage) operations”.
Ukraine regains control of dozens of localities
Ukrainian armed forces regained control of dozens of localities in the Kherson region, which had been the first major city to fall after the Russian invasion. After the evacuation of Kherson, on the western bank of the Dnieper, an evacuation order to Russia’s Krasnodar region near Crimea was issued by pro-Russian local authorities on Saturday evening to their district employees. from Kakhovka, on the eastern bank of the river.
During the night from Sunday to Monday, the southern command of the Ukrainian army affirmed that the Russian forces continued to “establish a defense on the left bank of the Dnieper” and “additional lines of defense at several levels to hold the occupied borders”.
Moscow “continues to inflict fire damage on our troops and liberated localities along the right bank of the Dnieper using aviation, heavy artillery, MLRS (rocket launchers, editor’s note) and mortars”, he said. added. On the diplomatic level, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Monday, on the eve of the G20 summit in Indonesia, that ending the war in Ukraine was “simply the best thing to do for the world economy”.
The invasion launched nine months ago by the Russian president Vladimir Putin has profound economic repercussions, with soaring energy and food prices. Officially, the invasion of Ukraine is not on the agenda of the club of 20 major economies whose leaders meet on Tuesday and Wednesday on the Indonesian island of Bali. Moscow has also called on the G20 to focus on economic and financial issues rather than political and security issues.
Zelensky visits Kherson
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday visited Kherson, a key city in the south of the country recaptured from the Russians last week, a source within the Ukrainian presidency told AFP. Mr Zelensky strolled through the streets of the city in military-style attire, surrounded by heavily armed bodyguards, but without wearing a helmet or body armor himself, according to videos posted on social media .
“Glory to Ukraine!” Residents shouted to him from the balcony of a building. “Glory to the heroes!”, replied in accordance with tradition the head of state and those who accompanied him. Russian forces had withdrawn a few days earlier from Kherson after eight months of occupation, leaving the field clear for Ukrainian soldiers to enter the city on Friday.
However, the Kremlin stressed on Monday that the Ukrainian city of Kherson belonged to Russia, reacting to the arrival in this southern Ukrainian city of President Volodymyr Zelensky a few days after the retreat of Russian forces. “We won’t comment, you know it’s the territory of the Russian Federation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said as Russian forces withdrew from the capital city last week. of the Kherson region, which Moscow is claiming annexation.
Before noon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sang the national anthem in Kherson, where the blue and yellow flag was raised in front of the regional administration building. According to a video posted on Twitter by the chief of staff of the Ukrainian presidency, Andriï Yermak, Mr. Zelensky could be seen, hand on the heart, singing in front of soldiers and inhabitants the words of the national anthem: “Our enemies will perish , like dew on the sun, and we too, brothers, will govern, in our country”.
—Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) November 14, 2022
At the G20, Sergei Lavrov hospitalized?
The head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov arrived on the Indonesian island of Bali on Sunday for the G20 summit where he will represent Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and Wednesday, AFP journalists noted. The Kremlin on Friday explained the absence of the Russian president at the G20 by agenda constraints, but his absence is seen as a sign of isolation in the midst of military intervention in Ukraine. The Russian minister landed on an official Russian plane at Denpasar airport from Phnom Penh, where he attended the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
On Monday, rumors about Sergei Lavrov’s hospitalization in Indonesia grew. Russia has denied, with video support, rumors that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was hospitalized upon his arrival at the G20 in Bali, Indonesia. “It’s fake of the highest level,” the minister’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, lamented on Telegram after the dissemination of information on the hospitalization of the head of Russian diplomacy. She then published a video of the minister, sitting in shorts on a terrace, in which he brushes aside rumors about his health and advises Western journalists “to write the truth more often”.
“The coming months will be difficult” for Ukraine, warns NATO chief
“The coming months will be difficult” for Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned on Monday as the country celebrates the liberation of Kherson, a key southern city recaptured from the Russians last week. Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson “demonstrates the incredible courage of the Ukrainian armed forces”, but “we must not make the mistake of underestimating Russia”, Mr Stoltenberg told a press conference in The Hague, after discussions with the Dutch government.
“The Russian armed forces retain significant capabilities as well as a large number of soldiers and Russia has demonstrated its willingness to assume significant losses,” added the NATO chief.